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June 12, 2013 — “We must feed 9 billion people by 2050” is a common refrain among food industry leaders, held up as the ultimate — if elusive — goal of production and sustainability. Unfortunately, current approaches to address this challenge are unsustainable — from economic, ecological and social perspectives.

Today’s investment dollars are going toward business models that are strikingly myopic in their approach, based on the belief that increased consumption is the key to economic growth. As everyone knows, however, our Earth’s natural resources are finite, and they are degrading faster than we are replenishing them. Therefore, we need to shift from a “more consumption” to a “better consumption” model. We need a forward-thinking strategy that will help us build resiliency and regeneration into our ecosystems as we grow food for an increasing population.

By reconsidering our investments and developing new solutions, we will ensure not only enough food for 9 billion, but also a planet that provides clean water, fertile soil and rich biodiversity — as well as healthier consumers and stronger communities — in 2050 and beyond.

Agricultural Evolution

Over the past few decades, farming systems have changed dramatically. Following World War II, the agricultural sector underwent a chemical revolution, with DDT being one of the first broadly used pesticides. Many farmers embraced it as a way to control unwanted pests or weeds, but it came at a cost to humans and wildlife. By the 1960s, it was linked to nervous system and liver damage, breast cancer, miscarriages, developmental delays and male infertility.

Based on performance to date, we need to think outside the singular box of GMOs and instead invest in a broad range of tools to address the challenges at hand.

Although DDT is now banned in the United States, other chemicals are similarly concerning. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, is used extensively worldwide but has been linked to birth defects and cancers. In addition, a 2009 paper published in the European Journal of Agronomy finds it compromises plants’ defense mechanisms, making them more susceptible to disease and ultimately leading to reduced yields.

U.S. farm size has also increased, due in no small part to 1970s federal policies that helped drive farmland consolidation and monoculture cropping. According to an Economic Research Service report, as of 2007, farms with more than 1,000 acres now account for more than 60 percent of all U.S. farmland and more than 40 percent of all U.S. agricultural production value. While farm size is not inherently a problem, how the farm is managed can be: toxic, persistent chemical applications come at a cost to human health and the environment, and less diversification creates vulnerabilities in the system.

The most recent agricultural developments center around genetic engineering. In the nearly two decades since genetically engineered crops (commonly referred to as genetically modified organisms, or GMOs) have been farmed commercially, they have focused on adding two primary traits to crops: a herbicide-tolerant trait that allows crops to survive chemical sprays while a weed is destroyed, and an insect-resistant trait that gives crops a built-in toxin so farmers can use fewer pesticides. Although designed to use fewer chemicals on crops such as corn, soy, canola and cotton, these two traits have actually led to an increase of 400 million pounds of agrochemical applications in the United States, according to a study of pesticide use from 1996 to 2011 published in Environmental Sciences Europe in 2012.

To further complicate matters, evidence in recent years demonstrates nature adapting to chemical spray through the evolution of “superweeds.” These weeds are chemical resistant; 24 weed species are now resistant to glyphosate. This results in farmers needing to use more — or more toxic — chemicals to combat them, which pollutes our soils and waters, creates known risks to humans, and ultimately doesn’t help farmers.

Finally, a study conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that no genetically engineered corn or soy crops increased intrinsic yields (yields grown under “ideal” conditions) in the U.S. Operational yields — those that occur under field conditions — also didn’t increase for herbicide-tolerant corn and soy crops. Only the built-in toxin trait for corn demonstrated modest increased yields of approximately 0.2–0.3 percent per year from 1996 to 2009. Relative to yield increases from conventional breeding – corn yields have increased an average of 1 percent per year in the past several decades – it appears the impact of GMO crops is modest, at best.

All told, this is not a resounding return on investment. Based on performance to date, we need to think outside the singular box of GMOs and instead invest in a broad range of tools to address the challenges at hand.

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Shauna, you seem to want to support your claims with evidence, so I'm presuming you care if what you say is true or not. Yes? But what happens when you get to meat?

Is there any evidence at all that grass fed meat is "better" (I'm Australian and most of our domestically consumed cattle and sheep meat is grass fed and our rate of bowel cancer is the highest in the world!). By evidence I don't mean claims by Michael Pollen, I mean actual data. I don't know of any.

Is there any evidence that reductions of meat consumption would free up land? Sure ... Jonathan Foley's work is the best I know of. But how much do you need to reduce consumption to free up land?

That depends on how much meat you want to produce. Is it 10 percent of what is eaten now? 50%? 1%? Without putting a number on it, there is no way to calculate the land required. Eating just 1% of meat would certainly free up land ... but 50%? That's far from obvious. And what about climate change? For every ruminant we graze, that's a significant amount of methane that needs to be dealt with. Australia has more cattle than people and the warming they produce exceeds that of all our coal fired power stations ... and grass fed cattle produce far more methane than feedlot cattle.

In reply to Geoff Russell: What else do these grass fed beef eaters, eat. Is it refined carbs or organic fruit and veggies. Bowel cancer is not the result of grass fed beef but is the end result of refined and processed food.

Shauna SadowskiJun. 13th, 2013

In response to Geoff Russell: Thanks for your questions. On the health focus, there are several peer-reviewed studies that point to nutritional differences between grain-fed versus grass-fed animals. An extensive literature review by the Union of Concerned Scientists looked into this issue and found that pasture-raised meats offer nutritional benefits to grain-fed. You can read the study and the full list of citations here: http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/solutions/advance-sustainable-agriculture/greener-pastures.html#. I don’t know what sort of research has been done on the causes of bowel cancer in Australia, but I imagine there are many dietary factors to consider.

On the land-related point, given that 1/3 of cereal production is fed to animals, one might posit that we could switch from animal-feed to people-feed crops. Thus it might not ‘free up land’, but you would use land differently so you can feed more people (given feed to animal conversion rates). And to your point, it’s about the quantity of meat we want to produce. I don’t have an exact percentage to give you. My point is around reworking parameters to feed a growing population. In fact, I think that these numbers need to come from a bottoms-up, not a top-down approach so that the regional ecology and population needs are taken into account. There are a lot of variables at stake and we need to consider the needs of the land and people.

As for climate change and animals, this is a really interesting issue. Based on what I have studied, animals can be an integral part of a healthy ecosystem landscape. And while enteric fermentation is problematic from a carbon emissions standpoint, we need to also consider the benefits that animals can bring from an ecosystem-health perspective. Yes, they may contribute methane into the atmosphere, so we need to consider quantity of animals. But they can also regenerate our lands if we practice holistic management techniques. Alan Savory’s team has done extensive work on this and I know several folks who follow his principles. You can find his portfolio of research here: http://www.savoryinstitute.com/2013/03/resources/evidence-supporting-holistic-management/. And you can watch a great TED talk on this topic here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html.

Brent VerrillJun. 13th, 2013

Geoff Russell: It is my understanding that the methane measurements from cows show very high emissions from confinement operations where animals are fed mostly corn and soy, foods that ruminants shouldn't eat. If I ate ice cream and pinto beans all day every day, I'll bet I would have lots of gas too. I won't speak for your bowel's reaction to such a diet.

Joel Salatin, Allan Savory, and others have shown that properly managed ruminants on grasslands will actually sequester carbon and build soils. Oh, and increase yields and profit, by the way.

Shauna: Other species of animals on our planet expand or contract their populations based primarily on their food supply. Why should we be different? If we were only able to produce enough food next year for 7.1 billion people, I'd be pretty confident in saying there would be 7.1 billion people. Would people suffer? I don't think people would suffer any more than they already do suffer. I know it's a crazy thought. I just thought I'd put it out there. We are, after all, biologically based creatures that evolved on this planet WITH all the other creatures that are here. Shouldn't the same natural laws that govern their existence also govern ours?

Geoff RussellJun. 13th, 2013

Margaret, read the World Cancer Research Fund's 2007 expert report (with various updates). http://www.dietandcancerreport.org/
When you eat red meat, any red meat (kangaroo, beef, pork, venison, etc) your body generates endogenous nitrosamines ... the same stuff that causes lung cancer in smokers. This process is entirely natural and has nothing to do with refining or processing. Your claim about bowel cancer being the result of refined and processed food isn't supported by any data at all ... it get echoed around the internet ad nauseum but there's no actual epidemiology to support it. Whereas there is plenty to support the red meat link. The nitrosamine causal chain is one of a few for which there is good evidence.

Shauna SadowskiJun. 17th, 2013

In response to Brent Verrill: If we know that there is enough food to feed everyone today and there are still people who don't have enough to eat, it seems that the natural laws are already not working with the human species. I think we humans do a pretty good job of altering the natural laws, and this results in many people suffering - oftentimes, the most under-privileged and poor. I don't think that leads to a better world.

Dave WoodJun. 20th, 2013

You argue that the impact of GMO crops is modest and not a resounding return on investment. Yet the Americas North and South are each exporting about $30 billion dollars of GM crops each year to Asia: that is an enormous return to farmers on investment by private-sector GM seed companies.
Also, you recommend `agroecology’- an understanding the structure and function of the natural ecosystems on which agriculture is built. The World Bank IAASTD Report is partly to blame for the confusion over just what agroecology is and its relation to natural ecosystems. The Glossary of the IAASTD Report claims that: “Agroecological functions are generally maximized when there is high species diversity/perennial forest-like habitats.” I think this almost exactly wrong. Most of our food now comes from annual grasses – a plant type that cannot survive in `perennial forest-like habitats’. There is a sound agroecological reasons for the success of cereal monocultures. Firstly: a major ecological principal is the need to escape competition, in particular from the dominance of woody vegetation – grasslands worldwide manage this escape. Secondly, cereal fields are a close mimic of the wild annual grasslands that supported our pre-agricultural ancestors over 10,000 years ago. These natural fields of one species were maintained by natural disturbance – flooding, fire, and grazing. From the dawn of agriculture farmers have mimicked this disturbance by tilling and weeding to reduce competition for the crop.
In addition, we may have a `monoculture of the mind’ for agroecology. Rather than a broad international acceptance of agroecology, it is dominantly promoted from a limited number of scientists in the United States, with the apparent intention of turning the agricultural clock back a hundred years or so.

Brad WilsonJun. 20th, 2013

There's much evidence for a variety of kinds of health benefits of grassfed meat and dairy, and also for cancer fighting benefits. Geoff seems to be out of the loop. I generally find little criticism of meat that is not one-sided, as related to my various points here, for example. The methane issue is another misunderstanding, as all plants decay, but they only measure those going through ruminants. Another massive misunderstanding, I find, is on the question of land use, where narrow views prevail among critics of livestock, who are, here also, often led by those with religious or ideological pre-assumptions. There are vast regions where well managed livestock systems are sustainable, (ie. perennial grazing, often with no fossil fuel use, but rather with massive "draft" power, in that livestock themselves both harvest and fertilize,) but crop systems are not. A key factor is that in the same areas, poorly managed livestock systems devastate, while well managed livestock systems restore. Allan Savory's work on the massive grasslands of the world is crucial here (see his TED speech). Another key point is the role of livestock in crop rotations. Here in Iowa, USA, cheap commodity prices (for AgBiz buyers) have led to widespread loss of livestock on farms, and the plowing up of marginal lands previously used only for grazing, with no tillage. Also please note that if you get half of your income from livestock, then lose that, then farm size must double to stay the same size economically, which then changes the analysis here of farm size. It's not the 70s when policies increased farm size. The 70s were a partial exception. Nor is the problem subsidies, with farmers as beneficiaries, as is massively believed. Commodity Price Floors were lowered in the US (the price-setting export dominator) 1953-1995, then eliminated, to hurt farmers for the benefit of commodity buyers, with subsidies reducing income drops by only 1/8.

Geoff RussellJun. 20th, 2013

I'm not out of any loop I just understand the difference between epidemiological data and stuff that people believe because its what they want to believe.

First, grass fed beef produces more methane than feedlot beef. Why? Because that's what you find when you measure it, here's one such study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10375217

Savory? He's fine if you are more interested in a good story than in finding out what actually happens. Here's a little critique: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/04/allan_savory_s_ted_talk_is_wrong_and_the_benefits_of_holistic_grazing_have.html

Now back to grass fed beef. The UCS stuff is about fat profiles. I was talking about bowel cancer which has nothing to do with fat profiles. Red meat causes bowel cancer (see World Cancer Research Fund's 2007 report) and the faty acid profile is irrelevant. It might be relevant to heart disease but to find out you'd at least need to confirm that Australians have less heart disease ... and since we have heaps of it, I doubt you can do that. It doesn't matter how often you say that this or that fat profile is healthy ... you need epidemiological data ... measure of relative death rates of people eating different diets. Our heart disease rates dropped here a couple of decades ago when we started to remove fat from dairy products (remember this is all grass fed fat) and reduced sheep intake (remember all our sheep were grass fed) and replaced it with chicken (grain fed!).

Brad WilsonJun. 20th, 2013

I unfairly generalized in my comment in ways that clearly seemed to be a personal attack on Geoff, and I apologize for that, as it was carelessness and not my intention. On the other hand, his response, like his original comment, addressed only a fraction of the concerns that I raised. The Allan Savory critique starts by claiming that Savory didn't acknowledge that livestock have often damaged land, but in fact, at TED he starts with very strong statements of that. Also, the Savory critique misinterprets the "foodie" movement, which is primarily anti-meat in ways that are narrow and a reductive with regards to farming systems, nutrition, and related economic and policy issues. Geoff's information on research on Savory is welcome, but it makes a poor impression, couched as it is in the kind of rhetoric I described just above. There is little surprise at the challenges of measuring the various aspects of these very complex issues scientifically. By the way, I see little from environmentalists beyond the sustainable agriculture movement that give adequate holistic analysis to these complex issues. I challenge Geoff to find any environmentalist who's strongly anti-meat who even considers the issues I raise, (and which contradict the simplistic criticism of meat, and some of which have strong epidemiological support). Certainly he has done little of that here. A convincing argument should follow Noam Chomsky's method of criticizing your opponent's strongest position. For example, I've yet to find any critique of meat, environmentalist or other, that deals with the crop rotation issue, with the importance of livestock to Resource Conserving Crop Rotations. It's easy to see why the methane issue can go viral, but that still doesn't answer the charges I made above. We also need much help on the policy factors in what this article called "Agricultural Evolution." On the US Farm Bill, my top priority, and it's economic and ecological impacts, I've seen not yet seen any good analysis from any environmentalist, and a virtual ditto for "foodies."

Shauna SadowskiJun. 20th, 2013

@Dave Wood. It's true that GMO crops are exported by a handful of countries who produce them (I should point out that 90% of GMO crops are produced by just 5 countries: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Argentina, India). I don't have the dollar amount reference, so trust that you do. However, these countries export other crops as well. Being genetically engineered is not, in and of itself, the reason for the exports. Furthermore, the aggregate total of exports does not by itself tell us whether these farmers are benefitting as there are costs that go into producing crops as well. The primary traits for the majority of GMO crops requires expensive pesticides, which take away from the farmer's bottom line. Furthermore, the U.S. is a prime example whereby federal policies can falsely prop up exports due to various types of price supports. Thus, the actual return on investment is more complex and isn't obvious from just an export amount.

Agroecology is, indeed, not a new concept and it seems - based on the definition you highlight - that there are different interpretations of what it means. I defined agroecology in the article, and it's a bit broader than how you define it (referencing the WB). Species diversity is certainly key. But understanding the geographical complexity is also a part of the analysis. Here is how Stephen Gliessman, a pioneer in studying this work, talks about it: http://www.agroecology.org/Steve.html. I don't agree that those who are working on agroecology are taking us back in time. Quite the opposite, I see some amazing in-depth scientific research that looks at soil structure, water filtration and a host of other ecological components that seek to understand how farming and nature can work together symbiotically. Healthy soil is the foundation for farming and this is what I see progressive agroecological practitioners working on.

Shauna SadowskiJun. 20th, 2013

@Brad Wilson. Thanks for the additional details that you provide. I agree that Savory's work is noteworthy. To your point on farm size changing due to livestock no longer being a part of the system, it's a good one. However, I don't have a problem with farm size changing so much as I do with how the land is farmed. I do think we would see more balance in the system with integrated livestock management plans - be they on a single farm or within a community of farms.

I'd love to learn more about your points on policy and subsidies. I realize that these are complex issues and federal policy is more than just direct payment subsidies. But there are plenty of other 'price supports' the the U.S. offers to farmers that ultimately end up acting as a subsidy - i.e. crop insurance.

Shauna SadowskiJun. 20th, 2013

@Geoff Russell. You asked whether grass-fed beef is 'better', and thus I responded to your question from a nutritional point of view, which is what the UCS speaks to. With regard to the World Cancer Research Fund Report, while they do link bowel cancer and red meat consumption, they do not advocate eliminating red meat altogether. Rather, they suggest reduced consumption of it. http://www.wcrf-uk.org/cancer_prevention/recommendations/meat_and_cancer.php. I agree with this recommendation. And they also recommend a host of other behavioral changes, including exercise and more plant-based foods. http://www.wcrf-uk.org/cancer_prevention/recommendations.php.

Regarding methane production of pasture-raised versus grain-fed, this analysis has many variables to consider and it's not a black and white response. The study you referenced uses low-quality feeds for pasture raised animals and feed seems to be a major factor for methane emissions. A report by UCS (yet another one!) highlights several studies that assess this issue. They state: "Perennial pasture species typically sequester more carbon in soil than annual row crops used for feed grain concen- trates. On the other hand, cattle in CAFOs usually gain weight faster than cattle on pasture. The result is that feedlots may produce fewer methane and nitrous oxide emissions per unit of product, but pastures may offset that advantage by sequestering more carbon in the soil. However, best management practices can affect both the rate at which pasture soil sequesters carbon and the rate at which pasture plants grow—and thus the productivity of beef production—as well as other factors that influence methane and nitrous oxide emissions from pasture." http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/food_and_agriculture/global-warming-and-beef-production-report.pdf

Tim GiesekeJun. 29th, 2013

I agree with the premise and conclusion of the article that the state of agriculture needs to transition to a new state. The one common denominator I see throughout the whole article is the influence of economics.

If that is the case, then I hypothesis that all the badgering by NGO and Gov will only move the needle a little bit.

The bold step is incorporating an ecological dimension into the existing economy. Okay, I hear you - that is folly, let's continue badgering - that too is folly, but NGO and Gov staff are well-trained in that.